1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to compact camera modules, and particularly having auto-focus, and optionally zoom, functionality contained in an efficient, versatile and durable packaging environment.
2. Description of Related Art
A camera module may be figuratively or actually separated into two main components, namely a sensor component and an optical train component. If the positions of all lenses of the optical train and/or one or more constituent lenses are fixed relative to the position of the image sensor the resulting electronic camera is said to be fixed focus. Rigidly fixing the optical system in place means only objects that are a certain distance from the camera will be in focus on the image sensor. Fixed focus cameras have advantages in terms of smallness of physical dimensions and cost, but the performance is limited. In particular, the focus distance is often set at 1.2 m so that objects from 60 cm to infinity appear tolerably sharp. However, the image sharpness is not especially good and objects that are closer to the camera than 60 cm will always be blurred. While it is possible to set the focus at a closer distance to correct for this problem, this means that the sharpness of distant objects declines in compensation.
It is therefore desired to have a compact camera module that has auto-focus, and optionally zoom, functionality that is contained in an efficient, versatile and durable packaging environment.